BASKETBALL – Bahrain’s under-23 3x3 basketball women’s national team secured an impressive runner-up finish yesterday in stop one of the Asia West/Pacific conference in the Fiba 3x3 Youth Nations League 2026, currently being played in Singapore.
The Bahrainis, featuring the quartet of Bayan Salman, Ninel Merkotun, Polina Sviatskaia, and JaMya Robinson, topped their preliminary round group after winning both their games against hosts Singapore and Saudi Arabia, but they then lost in the women’s final against Australia.
Their squad, coached by veteran Bahraini tactician Murtadha Mohammed, came away with 80 points following their classification in second place.
Yesterday’s action marked the first of six stops in the Asia West/Pacific conference of this year’s Fiba 3x3 Youth Nations League.
The second will take place today until the completion of the series on Wednesday next week.
Teams earn points in each of the stops as they continue their qualification bids for the Fiba 3x3 U23 World Cup, which is to be held in Hubei, China, from September 15 to 19.
Also competing yesterday in Singapore were Bahrain’s under-23 3x3 basketball men’s national team, who finished their competition in fourth place.
Coached by Fiba 3x3 World Tour standout Bogdan Dragovic, the Bahrainis split their two fixtures in the preliminaries which were also against Singapore and Saudi.
Their one victory wasn’t enough, however, to book their berth in the men’s final.
Their squad features Ismaeel Alansari, Elyas Younes, Mishal Buhamood, and Mohammed Alanzi.
They came away with 60 points on their conference standings.
Bahrain’s delegation in Singapore is headed by Bahrain Basketball Association official Ahmed Elyas.
Both the women’s and men’s squads feature two other players for a total of six apiece, with Noor Najaf and Amina Hani also looking to lace up their sneakers for the women and Nasser Alanzoor and Hamad Faisal hoping to play for the men.
In yesterday’s opening stop, Bahrain’s women got their Pool A campaign underway with a 13-9 victory over Singapore.
Robinson scored five points to pace the nationals while Salman added four, Sviatskaya had three, and Merkotun chipped in with one.
The kingdom’s squad then followed that up with a 19-5 rout of Saudi. Robinson and Sviatskaya finished with seven points apiece in Bahrain’s victory, while Salman had four and Merkotun one point.
In the women’s final, however, Australia were too good and they held the Bahrainis to just eight points en route to securing the 21-point target.
Salman scored four for the nationals while Sviatskaya added three and Merkotun one.
Meanwhile, the men’s team lost their opening Pool A game to the home side Singaporeans 6-21, with Alanzi finishing as their leading scorer with just three points.
They roared back with a 14-11 triumph against Saudi as Alansari, Younes, and Buhamood had four points apiece, while Alanzi chipped in with two markers.
Australia went on to win the men’s final 22-18 against Singapore.
In today’s second stop, both Bahrain’s women’s and men’s teams are in Pool A of their respective competitions along with Saudi and Qatar.
They will each once again hope to top their division to qualify for today’s final.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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